Orchids an unusual find

RUPERT, Idaho – An orchid collector says he’s found a flower that’s rare in Idaho.

Alan Porter said he was working at his monthly consulting job at Webb Garden Center in Ketchum last spring when a farmer walked in and told him about some yellow flowers he’d found growing behind his barley field.

The farmer asked Porter, a self-taught orchid expert, to come out and take a look.

Just after a June rainstorm, Porter hiked a half-mile through “a hundred billion mosquitoes” and found about 20 groups of lady slipper orchids.

Porter took pictures to document the find.

Research determined that the flowers are Cypripedium parvislorum var. pubescens, a species common in the northeastern United States but rare in Idaho.

The farmer and Porter declined to disclose exactly where they found the orchids. They said they were worried someone would steal the flowers.

Even with this protection, the lady slippers are doomed. They haven’t produced seed pods, which means their pollinator has been killed off, probably by pesticides, Porter said.

The flower’s construction prohibits hand-pollinating, so the plants will never reproduce where they grow, and wild orchids do not transplant. They end up dying, Porter said.

Porter has about 600 orchids at his home on the Idaho Youth Ranch, a residential treatment center for boys and girls, where he works.

The collection includes 30 different types of orchids, and he’s the president of the Magic Valley Orchid Society.